en vette shizzle-me-dizzle

Menu

Prince sues 22 people over bootleg recordings dating back to 1983

The pop artist Prince has filed a lawsuit against 22 people that he accused of engaging in “massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material.”

The lawsuit, which was filed in the Northern District of California, alleges that the defendants posted links on a Blogger or Facebook page where “unauthorized copies of the performance can be downloaded.”

Those links often included bootleg recordings of performances in 2011, 2002, and even as far back as 1983. According to Prince’s 22-page complaint, only two out of the entire 22 named defendants are known so far. One of the unknown defendants, Doe 2 (aka “DaBang319”) appeared to have a website with nothing but unauthorized recordings. However, the site curiously includes this proviso: “Never pay for unauthorized recordings. Support artists by buying their official releases.”